The dispute over the merchant ship SS Vincent de Paul led to a tense British effort to take her out of Tsingtao. An armed Royal Navy party resisted a Japanese boarding attempt before the ships sailed, showing how far events had moved beyond routine diplomacy. Birmingham, the merchantman, and HMS Foxton then faced three Japanese heavy cruisers with guns trained at extremely short range. The peaceful outcome depended on restraint in a setting where a few salvos could have turned a local dispute into a wider war.
Chapter · 1:50:36-2:10:06
Tsingtao: a confrontation at point-blank range
The historical incident put HMS Birmingham and Japanese cruisers in an unusually dangerous armed standoff.